Today's rugby news as Gatland summons coaches for final meeting and Wales hopeful steps up
Here are your rugby morning headlines for Sunday, January 12.
Wales coaches summoned for final squad meeting
Wales' coaches will meet for one last time today as they finalise their Six Nations squad ahead of Monday's announcement.
Warren Gatland's ticket have spent the weekend assessing performances in Europe as they prepare for a final selection meeting on Sunday.
READ MORE: Shane Williams makes feelings clear on Wales hopeful everyone is talking about
READ MORE: Ospreys move closer to knockout stages as Wales hopefuls shine
Gatland was at Kingsholm on Friday night to view the Anglo-Welsh clash between the Scarlets and Gloucester, while Neil Jenkins was in Swansea on Saturday to see the Ospreys beat Newcastle.
Monday will see Gatland name his Six Nations squad, with the pressure on the Wales coach after he was 'challenged' to lead Wales to success in the tournament following a winless 2024.
As well as running the rule over performances, Gatland and his coaching staff will also have to contend with injures. Cardiff had Taulupe Faletau and Corey Domachowski drop out of contention earlier in the week, before losing Regan Grace to a head injury during their defeat in Perpignan.
There's also some concern at fly-half, with Gareth Anscombe currently dealing with a knee issue and Sam Costelow forced off on Friday night with a shoulder problem.
Wales hopeful not thinking about Six Nations chances
Should either Anscombe or Costelow miss out, Gatland would at least be comforted by the performance of Ospreys' fly-half Dan Edwards.
The young playmaker was player of the match in the Ospreys' 35-15 win over Newcastle on Saturday night, only serving to strengthen his chances of a first senior call-up.
In fairness to Edwards, there's a good chance he makes the squad regardless of injuries to others - given his form and the fact he was invited to train with Wales in the autumn. Injury denied him that opportunity, but he could make the full squad on Monday.
However, after moving the Ospreys closer to the Challenge Cup knockout stages, he admitted he wasn't giving Wales too much thought, telling S4C post-match: "I'm concentrating on putting in good performances for the Ospreys and making sure we get the results to get us through to the next round."
On the Ospreys' performance, he added: "We played good rugby today. The first 10 minutes were quite tough. They came out the blocks quickly, they've got a young team so we were expecting it. We were great in the second half.
"I'm enjoying my rugby at the moment. Enjoying having the ball in my hands and that showed today."
Speaking about Edwards, Ospreys head coach Mark Jones said: "We tried to leave Dan out there because he was going well. We didn't see the point in bringing him off, even though he was strapped up a little bit.
"I thought that generally our backline as a whole was pretty good. Owen Watkin was present. Reuben is always dangerous. I could go on and on.
"I won't even talk about Jac Morgan. Morgan Morris was an absolute warrior. It was just a good all-round performance. The pleasing thing for me was a bit of pressure came on. We played with control."
English club suffer ‘bit of a stuffing’
By Andrew Baldock, PA Rugby Union Correspondent
Rob Baxter admitted his team had suffered “a bit of a stuffing” following Exeter’s record 69-17 Investec Champions Cup defeat against Bordeaux-Begles.
A month after they shipped 64 points on home soil at the hands of tournament favourites Toulouse, the Chiefs were handed another lesson at Sandy Park.
It was Exeter’s 12th defeat from 13 Premiership and Champions Cup starts this term, their heaviest Champions Cup reversal and the most points they have conceded at home since gaining top-flight status in 2010.
“The scoreline has got away from us. It was a bit of a stuffing, wasn’t it?” Chiefs rugby director Baxter said.
“We had loads of guys fighting really hard and trying to have a big effect on the game, but it kind of stopped us doing things as a team.
“I think we settled down just after half-time and got through a bit more and you saw some periods of good play, but the minute something disrupted us, a try would happen. That’s kind of what happened today.”
Exeter were left on the verge of Champions Cup elimination after conceding 11 tries to the rampant French Top 14 leaders. The Chiefs also missed an eye-watering 47 tackles.
Chiefs need a landslide bonus-point win in their final pool fixture against Ulster to have any chance of reaching the last-16, but an early exit still beckons because of their poor points difference.
Baxter added: “Right here and now, the one thing it has taught us is that we have to work extremely hard on our foundations around set-piece, our systems in defence and attack, and spend a lot of time on those and get everyone believing in them, doing them and sticking at them.
“No-one likes to have a load of points stuffed up your shirt. That’s the reality. You have to get on with things, turn up at the next day’s training, suck it up and get on with things.
“I am not sitting here and trying to make light of it. We have got a lot of hard work to do, and we are going to get on with it. This is a collective thing.
“They (Toulouse and Bordeaux) are a class above any other team we have played.
“We probably performed better against Toulouse – we held our basics together better. Bordeaux were fantastic at capitalising on every opportunity they had.
“It has been a tough day for us, and we have got to try and move on.
“The reality is I am a professional sports coach, and we just got well beaten in a competition that we qualified for. We need to do better than that.”
Bordeaux cut loose during a dominant first half that saw captain Maxime Lucu claim a try double, while wing Damian Penaud, replacement Louis Bielle-Biarrey and hooker Maxime Lamothe also touched down.
Fly-half Matthieu Jalibert kicked three conversions, and Exeter could only muster a breakaway Paul Bampoe-Brown try in response.
The second period was similarly one-way traffic, with Penaud and Bielle-Biarrey each adding their second tries, before Penaud completed a hat-trick, while Jalibert, Cyril Cazeaux and Yann Lesgourgues also crossed. Jalibert finished with seven conversions for a 19-point haul.
Exeter, meanwhile, managed two tries for Brown-Bampoe and one by Ben Hammersley, plus a Henry Slade conversion on another sobering occasion during what has proved a season to forget.
